


Generations of Leaves

by themastersbeard



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Class Differences, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-World War II, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-04-19 02:37:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4729553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themastersbeard/pseuds/themastersbeard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keswick, Cumberland, 1947.</p><p>An English town and its inhabitants try to rebuild in the aftermath of the Second World War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some Cumbrian dialect will be interspersed throughout the story. When it has been used, translations of words will be included in the author's notes.

  
τὸν δ᾽ αὖθ᾽ Ἱππολόχοιο προσηύδα φαίδιμος υἱός:  
‘Τυδεΐδη μεγάθυμε τί ἢ γενεὴν ἐρεείνεις;  
οἵη περ φύλλων γενεὴ τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν.  
φύλλα τὰ μέν τ᾽ ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ᾽ ὕλη  
τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ᾽ ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη:  
ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἣ μὲν φύει ἣ δ᾽ ἀπολήγει.'  
\- Ἰλιάς, Ὅμηρος  
VI. 144-149. 

  
The noble son of Hippolochus answered staunchly,  
"High-hearted son of Tydeus, why ask about my birth?  
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.  
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,  
now the living timber bursts with the new buds  
and spring comes round again. And so with men:  
as one generation comes to life, another dies away."  
\- Book VI, the Iliad  
translation by Robert Fagles

  


He had always liked the feel of the greenhouse air, the scent of green and growing things. The warmth and humidity a sharp contrast to the crisp chill of the autumnal evening. Winter would soon be upon them, and with it a haze of fuzzy days and snowy nights. Sam had always preferred the Spring.

Up and down the aisles, he runs his hands along planters and pushes past jewel bright leaves to reveal clusters of delicate white flowers and ripening strawberries. Tomorrow he would come to gather fragrant bundles of rosemary and sage for drying. But for now, there is little left to do. He pokes at beds of soil to check the dampness, and plucks away fallen leaves from their breadth. If he tugs free a few blackberries to pop in his mouth on the walk back to the gardener’s cottage, well, it’s no matter, Mr. Bilbo never minded such things.

He looks to the darkening expanse of trees which border the edge of grounds. As a boy, he’d looked to the bay willows and wych elms and thought them a formidable forest. He knows now that they stretch forth no more than fifty fathoms deep, but they held a symbolic sway, and, to be sure, they made for a nice sight at the end of a day of work.

Outside the cottage, he spots his father, Hamfast, shuffling around the vegetable patch.

“Pass me the hoe,”

Sam proffers the requested tool, and receives a grunt of thanks in reply.

“You shouldn’t be working in the cold and damp, Da. The rheumatism’ll be acting up again, sure as like.”

His father gives him a look that tells him that if he’s going to stand about and talk, he’d best clear away. Sam picks up a second hoe, and swings it at the hardening earth. The waxy tubers are pale against the churned up soil; the second cropping always a bit smaller than the main; but it was in wide agreeance that the Gaffer had the finest potatoes for leagues. They’d be left to dry, and then packed away for the winter.

When it becomes too dark to make out the shape of one’s hands, even the Gaffer concedes defeat, and the lifted potatoes are collected, and the hoes returned to the shed where they will await the following day.

Sam wipes the sweat from his brow, and looks up the lawn to the house proper. The windows, lit up, look like candles alight in the darkness.

“Is Mr. Bilbo entertaining tonight?” 

His father pauses in the act of standing up a rake to follow Sam’s gaze. 

“I heard mention that his nephew is back from school. ‘Spect he’s getting him settled in and suchlike.”

“Mr. Frodo? Isn’t it early fer him to be off from school?”

“‘S none of my business, is it? None of yours either,” he claps a gentle hand on Sam’s shoulder to steer him back towards the cottage. “I made pudding.”

“Baked apples?” Sam cannot stop himself from asking.

The next day he resists dashing up the length of the grounds to the house; but cannot resist from focusing his efforts on tending to the bushes beneath the windows. He cannot help it if his eyes just so happen to wander to the dining room; he only wishes that the sun weren’t so bright, and that it reflected just a wee bit less in the glass. 

He remembers when he and the Cotton boys; Tom, Jolly, Nick, and Nibbs would take turns following Mr. Frodo around as he went along his business. He was twelve and from Windermere, two facts which cut him an exotic figure in their eyes, and ensured his status as the prime target for their play at being spies. Neither Sam, nor the Cotton boys, had ever been further out than Penrith, and they had once heard Frodo talk of _Carlisle_. Frodo, for his bit, had been tolerant and humoured them with tales he’d read in his handsome school books. Sam had adored him then, but with the War, and then Frodo off to Cambridge to read Classics, Sam had only caught glimpses of him the past seven years.

He tries to drag out the time, lingering around the house and kicking about the soil for wayward twigs. He is making a show of spreading mulch amongst the rose bushes beneath the ledge when the window opens. 

“Even a daft old man like me can spot what you’re about, Sam Gamgee,” Bilbo cranes his neck to survey the expanse of the flowerbeds.

Sam has the decency to look mildly ashamed.

“Put down your shears, and come in for tea, my lad.”

He tries not to appear too over eager as he rushes to comply. 

At the back door near the kitchens, he makes sure to thoroughly wipe his shoes off the cast-iron scraper, and then waits for Bilbo to let him in. 

“Be a good lad, and fetch Frodo, would you?” Bilbo calls out to him as he moves through the hall to the kitchen to fire up the range. “He was in the library last I saw him.”

He knows the layout of the house as well as he knows his own, though it is far larger; an amalgamation of bedrooms and studies and separate rooms for dining, and for sitting about. He cannot recall a time when he had not been in and out of Bag End. Had toddled in and out of the shrubbery since he could first walk. When his mum had died, it was Bilbo who had written and performed the eulogy. He knows where the floorboards are creakiest-- here, just before the parlour-- and can easily spot the place where Frodo’s cousins, Merry and Pippin, had pried off a corner of wainscotting in search of Bilbo’s legendary treasure. 

Sam finds Frodo slumped over the arm of a chair, a book lying at his feet from where it had tumbled from his lax fingers. This is not the boy he remembered; this is a man with hair shorn too short; thinner and sterner; a soldier. He looks exhausted, and for a second, Sam is gripped by the fear that the Gaffer had forgotten to mention something; something that would allow him to make sense of this muddle-- what if it he had returned because he was seriously ill?

He goes to try his voice: “Mr--Mr--,” but he falters. “Mr. Frederick?” he tries, voice a little too loud.

The man before him jolts awake as if a puppet on strings that are suddenly pulled taught. His eyes are wild before he takes in the surroundings, and they fix on Sam.

Sam is suddenly shy, and wrings his sweaty hands. He is conscious of the poor state of his trousers, and the dirt under his nails.

“What on earth?” perhaps it is due to the breadth of time which has passed, but the voice is not one that Sam remembers. It less boyish; sharp and worn. He stares uncomprehendingly. 

“Begging your pardon, Sir, shouldn’t have woken you so sudden-like. Not that you’d any reason to recall, Sir, but it’s Samwise Gamgee, if you do remember the Gaffer--” he cuts himself off, feeling foolish.

“Sam, good god-- of course I remember you!” he rises to grasp Sam’s hand between his own, which are cold and clammy. Sam doesn’t mind, he had remembered him. “None of that Mr. Frederick nonsense now, only Aunt Esmerelda calls me that and I think then it’s only to spite me.”

“Mr. Bilbo asked me to fetch you, sir, he’s in the kitchen if you’re in the mood fer a cuppa,” he says by way of explanation, feeling his ears burn.

“Well, best not keep him waiting then.”

Sam, after a moment’s hesitation, turns back to retrieve the book from where it lies splayed on the rug. He lies it reverently atop a doily on the neat side table, and inhales deeply. There is nothing finer, in Sam’s opinion, except perhaps a fine draught of ale, than the smell of books. He turns to follow Frodo, but finds that he has not left, and instead stands stiffly by the doorway. With a short motion, he beckons Sam through.

Over tea Bilbo talks a great deal about the Gaffer’s potatoes, perhaps to compensate for Frodo, who is listless, or perhaps to make Sam feel more at ease after he spills half his tea into the saucer. 

“He got it into his head to lift half o’ the crop just last night and wouldn’t be told no till it were so dark that you couldn’t make your hand from your foot,” Sam tells him.

Bilbo laughs, and Sam takes an overlong sip of tea, a tactic he employs several times to sneak secret glances at Frodo over the rim of his cup. He itches to ask what he’s doing back so early from school, not that he is complaining, mind. But something tells him he’d best leave it be for the meantime.

As reluctant as he is to do so, he excuses himself after he empties the last dregs from the cup, the mulching gnawing at his conscience. 

“Thank you very much fer the fine tea, Mr. Bilbo, sir. And sorry fer any intrusion. I really must be getting back to the gardening.”

Bilbo leads him to the back door.

“Always a pleasure, my boy. Why don’t you come round for supper on friday, hm?” 

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly--” Sam protests weakly.

“Nonsense! We’ll see you then. Frodo will enjoy having someone more his own age to talk to,”

And then Sam skips his way down the steps to the lawn. The wind nips at his fingers, and though his arms feel chilled he feels he could do a little jig, not believing his luck. He thinks better of it, but only because he suddenly remembers that the windows of the kitchen open out behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Friday cannot come soon enough. Thursday is spent raking back swathes of scarlet and golden leaves and lifting the very last of the potatoes. Once they’ve safely been laid out for drying, Sam is finally able to return to the fire-warmed innards of the cottage. 

“‘S mizzlin out, it’ll be stotting down tomorrow,” the Gaffer tells him, peering out shortsightedly from the window.

Soon after that, he heads to bed with a gruff “G’night,” and Sam is left nursing the remains of a mug of tea. He is a bundle of nerves and excitement. There is a brief flicker of worry when he considers Frodo’s despondency he previous day. But, he reasons, if Frodo were seriously unwell his uncle certainly wouldn’t have invited Sam round.

He watches as up at the house, all, save one, of the lights are extinguished, and the night plunged into darkness. Only the new moon and flickering stars remain to the reflect on the wet trees and damp grasses of the lawn.

The next day does not dawn, so much as the grizzle of clouds lighten by degrees; the blacks to greys and the greys to whites, but still the chill rain pours down. It drenches Sam on the way to greenhouse, but he can’t bring himself to be overly fussed; he likes the feel of it on his cheeks, and the way it makes everything feel born anew. When his wet shirt begins to itch, he merely strips it off and hangs it over a rail while he tends to seedlings and watches the rivulets of water stream down the panes of the roof.

Back at home, the Gaffer hobbles around the kitchen complaining of stiff joints and a twinging back.

“Divn’t you be stepping into this house with your sproits all clarty-like. You trek mud in here, and you’ll be the one to scrub it,”

Sam takes the warning to heart and leaves the mud-caked shoes by the door before retreating to strip his wet trousers and socks. When he returns, there is a mug of tea waiting for him.

Rosie Cotton turns up shortly after in wellingtons with her apron tucked up to find Sam scrubbing his face in the wash basin. 

“Hossing something awful out there,” she says wiping the rain from her cheeks. “Me mam’s sent me to beg a bit of sugar of you. She’s making a cake fer Nibs’ birthday this Saturday, and she swears we’ll return it this coming week when we’ve collected our rations.”

“Lily needn’t be swearing nothing, Sam’ll pack it fer you.” Hamfast tells her, pouring out another serving of tea. 

She gratefully accepts the steaming mug from him, before she props herself up on the mantlepiece to watch Sam.

“Trying to make yerself look smart, are you?” she takes a long draught of tea. “T’is a losing battle, I’m afraid, Sam.” 

Laughing, he wipes his face dry on a rag.

“He’s up to the house fer dinner, on Mr. Bilbo’s request,”

“Are you now, Sam?”

“Aye,” he feels a brief swell of pride. “Mr. Frodo’s returned,”

He begins to rummage through the cupboards for a glass jar.

“I wonder if he’ll be tramping all over the fells at all hours o’ the night again,”

“That, dear Rosie, I can’t say,” he pours sugar into the jar and then screws the lid tight to ensure that no water can leak in. 

Once the last of the the tea has been drunk, she rises to leave, kissing Sam on the cheek after tugging her boots back on.

“I can’t take anymore o’ this,” Hamfast says when Rosie leans to kiss him too. “Cooped up like some hen. I’m going to the Green Dragon.” He reaches for his jacket.

“You can’t think of going out in this weather, Da”

“Don’t worry, Sam, I’ll make sure he gets there okay. Anythin’ tries to attack us-- even a mountain troll-- and I’ll make sure to fend it off,” she winks at him over her shoulder as she offers the Gaffer her arm.

“Don’t forget the brolly!” Sam calls, but the wind sweeps away any reply, and Sam is left alone with the sound of the plinking raindrops on the roof and the warm crackle of the fire. 

At half-five, he decided that it would not be entirely amiss if he arrived just a smidge early, and rises to change. He tugs on his good trousers, the ones he uses on the rare occasions when he goes to Church, and on the rarer occasions of weddings. He then tries to smooth his hair in the small-looking glass over the mantelpiece.

Out the back door he sees that Rosie and his Da had forgotten the brolly. Or perhaps he had left it in a demonstration of his mastery over the elements. Sam shoves it open, reaching to unstick one of the rusty prongs and tries to choose the least sodden path up to the house. 

He isn’t sure if he should knock, or simply let himself in, so he settles on a combination: first knocking, and then twisting the knob to let himself in.

“Sam, give that umbrella here, there’s a good lad,” Bilbo rushes to greet him, before wrestling the umbrella from his grasp and leaving it to dry in a corner of the mud room. “Here, so you don’t muddy the floor.”

A pair of purple carpet slippers are offered, and Sam accepts, peeling his feet out of the damp shoes.

Frodo is already in the dining room; he stands before one of the great windows at an angle, looking out onto the front lawn and wood. He turns when they enter, and manages a half-smile.

“Sam, it’s very good to see you,”

Sam flushes with pleasure, and mumbles out a greeting.

Over a dinner of cottage pie, mashed carrots, and roasted potatoes, their conversation flows far more easily than it did the day before last. Frodo is not as spirited as he remembers-- Sam can recall an instance when he had sang a drinking song from atop the very same table from which they were eating now-- but tonight he smiles easily and is much the livelier. Perhaps Sam had been mistaken; perhaps it had just been the journey which had exhausted him.

“And how is Marigold fairing?” Bilbo asks him stilling his fork and knife momentarily.

“Oh, well as can be, I expect. She did write not a fortnight past and seems to be enjoying the work.”

“Marigold is being apprenticed to a seamstress,” Bilbo supplies, for Frodo’s benefit. 

“I may be misremembering, but you also have a brother, do you not, Sam?”

Whether Frodo is feigning polite interest Sam cannot tell, and so humours the question.

“Two brothers: Hamson, and Halfred, and a three sisters: Daisy, May, and Marigold. That makes six of us altogether, though it’s just me left at home. Not that I’m one to fuss about the quiet,” Sam rolls a potato across the of his plate, suddenly struck by how much had changed in so short a span of time.

“Just you, your mother, and your father, then? I don’t think I’d particularly mind either, in your place,”

“My mother died, Sir, back in ‘43,” he regrets speaking as soon as the words fall from his lips; with a sharp motion Frodo looks up, stricken. 

“I’m so terribly sorry, Sam,” he fumbles. “I honestly meant no--”

“I didn’t take no offence, honest. I thought you knew, but it’s really no worry.” 

Sam feels particularly awkward after that, cursing himself both for not having the sense to gently break the news, and for having made Frodo so regretful over so trivial a matter. 

He tries to ignore the small niggling sense of reawakened loss as Bilbo tells them about his Icelandic friends who are due to pay a visit at Christmas. 

When Bilbo reaches to clear the plates, Sam jumps up to help.

“You’re a guest, Sam, just sit tight and I’ll bring some hot chocolates.”

So Sam is left alone with Frodo, and feeling bashful, pretends that he is suddenly interested in wood grain of the table.

“Ash, is this?”

“Oak, I thought, but I expect you’re probably right,” Frodo reassumes his former position at the window, body angled towards the room, but his eyes drawn to the stretch of night and fierce gale.

Sam picks at his cuff, slightly fraying at the edge, and in a moment of sudden boldness, speaks: 

  
_“Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;_  
_Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;_  
_Thy fate is the common fate of all,_  
_Into each life some rain must fall,_  
_Some days must be dark and dreary."_  


Then he is shy again, fingers on his cuff, and ears reddening.

“Longfellow? You’re full of surprises, Sam. I can hardly believe that it _is_ you. When I try and call a memory of you to mind, the first thing that I think of is of that boy who ran up to house to show Uncle Bilbo a newly hatched robin.”

“That were near thirteen years ago, sir. Short after you got here, if my memory do serve me right,” 

“Yes, so it was,” he sighs, and then:

  
_“One slowly drives his herd to the stall_  
_Ere ill befall,_  
_On whom the rain comes down._  


  
_This bears his missives of life and death_  
_With quickening breath,_  
_On whom the rain comes down._  


  
_One watches for signals of wreck or war_  
_From the hill afar,_  
_On whom the rain comes down."_  


“I didn’t think you a fan o' Thomas Hardy, sir.”

“I have to say, I’m rather surprised that you recognised it.”

Something in Frodo’s voice gives Sam the courage to chance a look up. There is a half-smile playing at Frodo’s lips, some fondness showing in his face. Sam cannot contain his own smile. 

"Mr. Bilbo has been kind enough to lend me some o' his books these past years." Then, feeling a little more brave, he cannot help himself from asking: “Have you read Frost, too?” and an affirmation from Frodo propels him forward. “What about Wordsworth? Only I’m not quite sure I did understand all o’ his talk of Milton but t’is lovely, I think, just the same.”

When Bilbo returns with three steaming blue enamel mugs, he finds them chatting merrily. 

“I’m glad that you lads have been well reacquainted.”

Later, when the hot chocolate has been drunk, and they sit back full-bellied and warm in the lamplight, Bilbo pulls out one of his writing books.

“I’ve been working on something, if you’d care to hear it,”

Sam enthusiastically nods his assent. 

Bilbo’s voice is not particularly melodic, as he reads verse after verse, but Sam finds himself leaning back into the cushions and closing his eyes. He listens to the fall of the soft words which rise, only to break and crash in mind’s eye. When the words finally come to a close over a final stanza, Sam finds that his eyes are wet. He discreetly wipes them on the back of a knuckle, feigning sleepiness.

Frodo stretches in the armchair opposite.

It is half-eleven when Sam glances at the time.

“I should be going,” he tells them reluctantly. 

“I’ll see you out,” Frodo leaps up before Bilbo can respond. 

At the back door, Frodo bids him a warm goodbye before Sam can collect the umbrella or his shoes. When his attention is drawn to the carpet slippers still upon Sam’s feet, Frodo at first does not seem to understand.

“Did you come here in those?”

“No, sir, Mr. Bilbo lent them to me.”

Frodo scrambles to collect the umbrella while Sam knots his laces on his retrieved shoes. 

“I’m sorry, Sam, my head is in the clouds,”

“Oh, you needn’t apologise, Mr. Frodo. No harm done,” Sam lets himself out.

When he is halfway down the steps, Frodo calls out to him. “Come to tea this weekend, will you?” Sam stops to look at his dark figure framed in the light which pours out from the room beyond. When he says nothing, Frodo presses on, “I am so, so dreadfully sorry about earlier, about your mother, I hadn’t any idea that she had passed away. I know you’ll object and say that it wasn’t said with an intention to hurt, but intention-less hurts sting nonetheless. Please, come to tea,”

“I will, Mr. Frodo,” He smiles. “Goodnight, sir.” and then he turns his back to the house to find his way home. The light which continues to pour out over the slick grass tells him that Frodo doesn’t move from the door until Sam is near the wood and beyond his view. Then, the door shuts, and the night stretches out unimpeded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those only familiar with the films, I decided to go more the book-route in regards to the characterisation of Frodo and Sam.
> 
> Rosie's line: “I wonder if he’ll be tramping all over the fells at all hours o’ the night again." is a reference to FotR, where it is noted that Frodo frequently walks about the shire at night to star-gaze. This was also an opportunity for me to reference the beautiful landscape of the Lake District. If you haven't seen any photos of the Lake District fells before, I would suggest you look them up-- walking amongst them was the nearest I've ever felt to traversing Middle-earth!
> 
> The impromptu-poetry recitations are also references to the book, where characters, chief amongst them Sam and Bilbo, frequently leap up to rattle off some verse-- this was mostly omitted from the films. In the book the Gaffer tells some drinking companions that Bilbo had taught Sam to read. This is translated here to book lending to preserve some historical accuracy. For those not overly fond of poetry, never fear, it will not feature to such a prominent degree in the story again. 
> 
> Some translations to ease the reading:
> 
> 'Mizzling' - lightly raining
> 
> 'Stotting' - raining hard
> 
> 'Divn’t' - don't
> 
> 'Sproits' - shoes
> 
> 'Clarty' - muddy 
> 
> 'Hossing' - raining heavily
> 
> (Note: I am not from Cumbria myself, and if you detect any ill-usage of words, please do let me know so that I can amend it!)


	3. Chapter 3

Sunday finds him still marvelling at this great stroke of luck. Sam scrubs his face once again in the wash basin and smooths his hair with a comb in the mirror, all the whilst brimming with excitement and an unusual happiness. He would be the first, no doubt, to object to any insinuation that he were particularly unhappy till now. He is not unhappy, has not been, but something indistinct and undefinable now works it’s way through him until he is pleasantly warmed, and he finds himself whistling as he trudges up to Bag End. 

This time it is Frodo who greets him at the door, and who ushers him into the house. He forgets any slippers, until he glances down and realises that Sam is walking about in socks.

“Blast it, blast it,” he pulls open cupboard after cupboard, peering into the shadows for any pair of house shoes to no avail. “Here, just take mine. I’ll go stocking-footed.” he toes a slipper in Sam’s direction. 

But his feet are smaller than Sam’s own, and after a back-and-forth in which Sam objects on the basis that he might _ruin_ them, Frodo simply declares “We’ll both go in our socks, that way we’ll be even,” and then gestures Sam through to the hall.

There is a merry fire going in the drawing room and slippers prove unneeded, although Sam does feel rather silly staring down at his blue-cable knit socks-- a gift from Lily Cotton. 

Frodo shows no such reservations, stretching unceremoniously before leveraging himself into an armchair and inquiring about Sam’s work.

There is nothing for it but to speak once more on the theme of potato lifting and dethatching the lawn. It’s not particularly enthralling work, and Sam begins to wring his hands while he speaks. Frodo is either remarkably good at feigning interest in the minutiae banalities of hedge-clipping and tuber-laying, or else is genuinely interested. 

“--so I’ve going to finish that this week…” Sam finishes feebly. He looks away from Frodo, who is too wide-eyed and whose gaze is making him prickle with self-consciousness. “What have you been working at, Sir?”

“Ah, you know, a little of everything,” Frodo waves a hand vaguely. 

Sam wants the conversation to continue. To live up to these far-flung fancies that he had devised in the hours he had spent lying in bed, staring at the ceiling; hours during which he had imagined himself spouting wit which would both impress Frodo and make him laugh. It is so incredibly foolish, he thinks, and so uncharacteristic, but he can’t stop himself from yearning for the desire to be approved of, to be liked. He had never been so concerned about something before. 

The silence of stilted conversation begins to weigh on him, and before he can stop himself he has blurted out: “I have you on my wall,” and quickly backtracks, wishing that it were possible to just disappear on the spot. “I have that thing you did write fer me-- oh lord, I mean an alphabet, forgot the word there fer a moment-- the alphabet you wrote fer me,”

Frodo stares with wild confusion.

“You wrote out an alphabet fer me when I were twelve or so-- you must have been sixteen-- you wrote out a Greek alphabet-- translated? Transcribed? You wrote out the Greek letters on one side, and the normal alphabet on the other-- and well--”

He is cut off by a bark of laughter.

“My dear Sam, I’d quite forgotten about that until now,” Frodo is smiling, beyond all of Sam’s hopes, he is smiling with something akin more to endearance than any sort of malice at Sam’s rambling. 

Sam smiles back, shyly and uncertainly.

And the awkwardness has dissipated by a degree, the conversation flows with a bit more ease. The light outside fades until Frodo is a shadow, framed by the blaze of setting sun; he rises from his seat to light the lamps. When he sits once more, his eyes trail to the dying gleams of sunlight on the mantlepiece, and its reflection on the fireplace-grate.

" _The valley is thick with leaves, with leaves, the trees,_  
_The sunlight glitters, glitters a-top,_  
_Like a fish-scale roof,_ " he recites.  


"I'm afraid I divn't know that one, sir."

“Ah, it’s a little more, hm, perhaps one could say unconventional? It’s from one of Pound’s Cantos, he’s in prison now, of course, but I could lend it to you-- give me a moment,” and he dashes off, leaving Sam to contemplate the evening, to try and assuage any lingering feelings of foolishness, and to wonder what this Pound fellow had done to land himself in prison. 

When Frodo returns, he bears several books in one hand, and with the other, pushes back the short fringe from his forehead. 

Sam leaves with the books under his arm, and the easily extracted promise to return to discuss them shortly. This time, at least, Frodo had not forgotten to return his shoes. 

He reads the books, which each contain parts of one great poem, and feels that everything contained within rushes over his head. He eats dinner one-handed, book propped in the other, and the Gaffer’s goading from across the table: “Doing that so you divn't have to look at yer arl man, are yeh?” 

Somehow the mulching is completed, increment by increment, in contrast to the raking, which is never-ending and laborious. The land is cloaked in scarlets and golds, and each step outside is greeted by the crackling of dried leaves, much to Sam’s avail.

He finishes the poems, feels no less confused, and makes his way up to the house one Monday evening in early October.

It is not Frodo who greets him, but an apologetic Bilbo. 

“Sam, I’m terribly sorry, but Frodo is feeling a bit poorly today. I’m afraid he’s come down with something, perhaps you could call again next week?” 

There is a final burst of unusually tepid summerish air midway through the week, and then the village and fells are plunged into foggy mornings and evenings of chilled rain. Sam occupies the time with laying bulbs for the spring, and ensuring that the perennials have been trimmed back. He cannot help or stop the mixture of disappointment and worry which clench in his chest. He chastises himself for it-- what if Mr. Frodo were seriously ill, and he were here feeling sorry that he wasn’t about to talk about books? 

The following Monday, he returns. This time, Bilbo lets him in, telling him that Frodo is in the drawing room. Sam finds hims cloaked in a dressing gown sitting with his feet outstretched towards the fire. Sam freezes in the doorway, a voice sounding suspiciously like the Gaffer’s warning him that it was none of his business; that it was not to him to be intruding on the affairs of gentlefolk and the like.

Frodo is unconscious of his presence for a few moments, but gives a start when he finally registers Sam. He is pale-faced, but gives a half smile, and a cry of ‘Sam! It’s very good to see you-- and you have my books-- did you like them? Come and sit by me,”

And Sam ignores the warning admonitions and goes to sit by Frodo. He places himself on the very edge of the couch, and cannot for a moment fathom where to begin. 

“You don’t mind if I just sit here, do you? I wasn’t expecting any callers and I’m dreadfully comfortable at the moment,”

“No, sir, it is your house-- it’s just are you alright? I divn't want to be intruding or anything o’ the like,”

Frodo leans his back against the seat of the couch, and then says, quite simply, “Not at all, Sam. I was just a bit ill.”

“Did you catch a chill?” 

Frodo’s eyes follow the flickering of the fire, and Sam thinks that he can’t be too comfortable sitting so stiffly. The moment passes, and then Frodo’s lips quirk into a half-smile, and he says “Yes, something like that-- But more importantly, what did you think of the Cantos?”

Sam didn’t think much of the Cantos at all; hadn’t understood large swathes of them and thought that the writing had been complicated in ways that made everything overly difficult to understand, and not overly pleasant to read. He tries to say as much without insulting Frodo, but feels guilty and worried of disappointing when he catches the eagerness of his expression. 

“I was thinking, maybe, that this sort o’ thing just isn’t fer the likes o' me, if you catch my meaning,” 

To Sam’s surprise, Frodo laughs.

“Merry’ll be extremely pleased. I wrote him that I’d leant it to you and he wrote back and said, and here I shall quote to the greatest of my ability: ‘Pound is a miserly, supercilious, overly-ostentatious tart who can’t tell trochee from a pile of shite, Shame on you for foisting such complete self-indulgent drivel on your gardener. Hopefully he has more sense than you do than to entertain such a load of rubbish,’”

At this, Sam laughs and Frodo smiles properly, shifting slightly so that his arm brushes Sam’s leg. Something leaps in Sam’s throat, something unfamiliar and vaguely pleasant, and he finds he is not bothered enough to shift his leg away.

“How is Mr. Merry then? I saw him back in the summer o' ‘44--” Frodo looks down to his hands, “--He came up and tried to help prune the rosebushes. He didn’t do a half-bad job either, ‘cept Mr. Pippin did manage to dig up half o’ the onions and I thought the Gaffer would give him a smack, gentleman or no,”

Frodo chuckles, and Sam leans back to sit properly against the cushions. 

“Merry's reading history at Caius-- naturally he’s a huge bore who carries around Marx and only cares for facts and not for the divine intangibility of good literature,” but Frodo is teasing, smiling fondly in reminiscence.

“And Mr. Pippin?”

“At St. John’s reading physics-- although I don’t know why anyone would subject oneself to that, good god, as if he couldn’t pick anything more ghastly. And he’s gotten more than a few warnings from the college porter about his lively social life, which often includes drinking profuse amounts of wine with his friends, and then throwing up into the bushes conveniently outside his window-- but he has surprised everyone by doing exceptionally well his first year. He’s on track to get a first.”

The world of academia is fuzzy in Sam’s mind. He’d finished school at fifteen, and there was never any thought of anything besides being apprenticed as a gardener by his father. Both Hamson and Halfast had gone to see apprenticeship in the trades, and it was left to Sam to help tend to the household. University towns held a degree of unreality and were relegated firmly to serving as the backdrops of novels. 

“Well, that’s very good fer them; I am glad that all’s well with them,” 

“Yes, yes, I am too,” and then they are plunged into a silence which is companionable without feeling strained.

When he leaves it is with another book tucked under his arm, and another promise to return once he’s finished with it for a discussion.

“Just so you know, just because I find Pound’s work interesting, that doesn’t mean that I agree with him politically!” Frodo calls to him from the back door.

Walking the length of the wood to his house, Sam cannot help but smile to himself. At home, he pours a helping of tea for his father, and only half-nags when the Gaffer tells him that he’s off to the Green Dragon. 

Frodo seems well enough the following weeks, if prone to lazing about in his dressing gown before the fireplace rather than on any chair. He does not, however, ever venture far from home, instead seeming to have quietly dropped out of the society which exists beyond the scope of the grounds. It is a fact of which Sam cannot fail to make note, especially with the pub-gossip which when not centred on the weather, proclaims that Mr. Frodo had cracked, just like old Mr. Bilbo.

Many evenings are spent in the confines of the Bag-End drawing-room. Frodo is a spotty letter-writer, Sam discerns. He leaves great portions of his correspondence unanswered until he receives reproachful letters (chiefly from Merry and his cousin Fatty), and letters asking if he’s died, and if he can leave several shillings in their name in his will (from Pippin). At intervals of three weeks he is often seen with a writing box across his knees surrounded by small mountains of envelopes. 

“Pippin’s written in that pink ink again. I can’t make out a damned thing--”

“Frodo!” Bilbo looks reproachful over the top of his newspaper.

“I can’t make out a single thing. Here, Sam, what does that word-- no not that one, here-- look like to you? 'Aristotle' or 'aerobics'?”

“Looks like an a, then p-o-c-h-r-o-m-a-t-i-c--only I’m not sure that’s any proper word, leastaways not one I’ve ever heard before,”

“Oh damn him-- he’s written to me about refractors again,”

“Frodo!”

“Sorry, Uncle!”

And thus October passes along, and November comes both quite suddenly, and without any start at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a textual note: Frodo's illness is meant to coincide with the anniversary of Weathertop on October 6th (though of course Weathertop does not exist in this work in the form that it did in the film and books-- no swords!). It's noted in the book that Frodo became ill around the anniversaries of Weathertop, his encounter with Shelob, and the anniversary of the destruction of the ring. 
> 
> In regards to the characterisation of Merry, I decided to go more the book-route. He's far less silly than in the films, and is probably the most sensible and wisest of the hobbits. He was the one to suggest the shortcut to Bree, and the one to work out the meaning of "Speak friend and enter". It is also noted in the appendices that he wrote several books, including one on the history of pipe-smoking in the Shire, and another on the relationship between the languages of the Hobbits, and that of Rohan.
> 
> Merry also has a predisposition towards deadpan comments in the books, most notably when Lobelia Sackville-Baggins accuses Frodo of being more Brandybuck than Baggins. Merry comforts Frodo by telling him: "It was a compliment; and so, of course, not true".
> 
> The poem is an extract from Ezra Pound's Canto IV. The Cantos were selected more for their reputation as extremely difficult to understand, rather than any fondness for Pound on my own part. Some background historical fact for anyone interested, or confused: Pound was involved with the government of Mussolini during the Second World War, and was put in prison thereafter. 
> 
> A final note, the Greek alphabet is another reference to Frodo's field of study (before he took this hiatus from university), which was Classics-- or the study of Latin and Ancient (specifically Attic) Greek language and literature.
> 
> Some (brief) translations to ease the reading:
> 
> 'arl man' - 'old man' (or father!)


	4. Chapter 4

There is less to do with each passing day byways of the garden now that the chill has set in. The shrubs had been mulched and bound up, the flowerbeds cleared, and all the spring bulbs laid down. The ground hardened and the wind now whispered of snow. Sam keeps himself busy. 

There was still the greenhouse with its twisting vines and lemon tree, pleasantly humid and earthy. It consumed the daylight hours of each day unfailingly. It was foolish to dwell on anniversaries, they being no more than any other day. Nothing would change with it, and yet he still could not help but feel the absence of his mother a little more keenly with its approach. It was nothing he couldn’t handle, having learned long ago that the best thing to do was keep at work and move on rather than wallowing in any mire. 

In the evenings the Gaffer says nothing, and Sam offers no voice to the thoughts himself. They were occupied by a succession of hot chocolates, brews at the pub, the silence of the cottage, and thoughts of Frodo’s slim hands around the pages of a book. 

He does not hesitate to accept when he is invited round to the Cottons for dinner on the 14th of November. Just a date, after all.

Lily greets him at the door and bustles him through, tutting at his lack of mittens and fussing over the state of his hair. Dinner is sparse, rationing still taking its toll, but it was warm and homey. He listens to Jolly rattle on about a fight he had witnessed in town--

“And then he just clouted Sandyman, just like _that_ ,” his hand swoops in imitation of the act. 

\--and to Mr. Cotton’s talk of purchasing a half a dozen Swaledale come spring. The fact that they had bothered at all to welcome him in their midst made Sam feel all the guiltier after supper, when he feels an ugly jealousy rear its head as he watches Nibs dances around his mother to carry plates to the sink. They bickered over the washing until Nibs beat a hasty retreat, laughing, after he was swatted with a dish rag. Sam wonders if they could fathom out how extraordinarily lucky they all were. 

“Sam, Rosie tells us that you’ve been spending all yer time up at Bag-End. What’s this we hear o' Mr. Baggins going funny?” Jolly brandishes a spoon in Sam’s direction.

“I’m not sure what you rightly mean.”

“Ted’s been in the pub telling stories about how he’s gone funny in the head. Doesn’t ever leave his house, he says. Thinks he’s too good fer us common folk, he says.”

Sam feels a surge of defensiveness rise within him, his hand clenching on the edge of the table.

“Now that’s not fair, Mr. Frodo has been nothing but kind to anyone, and that’s the truth. You should know it, even when we were bairns. If Ted by rights wants to talk about gentlefolk who think they’re too good fer us, he ought to be talking about the Sackville-Bagginses,” 

Jolly, spoon now dangling from his mouth, simply shrugs.

After that the atmosphere is subdued, although Sam feels the niggling sense of something he can’t put a name to. Rosie drags a basket of knitting before the fire, setting it down next to the orange tabby which lies curled on the rug. He settles down in a chair beside her, watching the senseless rhythm of flames dancing along the fire-grate. He feels calmer with Rosie at his side, feeling immensely thankful for her quiet vivacity. She chats while darning, a gesture that was second nature and it was easy, for a few brief moments, to feel entirely distracted.

“So, do you reckon our Tom and your Marigold will be getting married soon?” she whispers conspiratorially, though neither the aforementioned Tolman, nor Marigold were present. 

Sam chokes on his water.

“What?”

“What d’you mean ‘what’?” 

“Why would they be getting married?” his stomach lurches. 

“Lor’, Sam, where have you been? They’ve been seeing each other fer a good while now; I thought you knew.”

His stomach plummeted, and for a moment he finds that he cannot respond. Instead he searches Rosie’s eyes in the firelight for the hint of some joke, and finds none.

“Now come, Sam, Marigold doesn't need you playing at being a second father to her-- she has one of those already, and besides, she’s old enough to know her mind. And Tom’s a good man,” her voice carries with it a hint of disapproval.

“No, it’s not--” but what exactly was it? A hammering home of the fact that his fleeting childhood had ended, and even Marigold, who he’d carried about in nappies, was leaving behind the very last dregs. It would recede to memory, distant and indistinct, and be thought of less and less. It troubled him, a harsh reality which had been cushioned by hot chocolates and literary irrelevance these past weeks: that everything would one day be forgotten. 

He cannot say this. It is self-pitying and more than two-thirds foolish, so he smiles and tells Rosie that it just makes him feel old, the thought of his baby sister getting married. And she rolls her eyes and reminds him that he’s only twenty-one, and there’s no need to be so dramatic. But she says it softly, and he hopes that perhaps, in the space of things unsaid, that she had understood.

At ten he excuses himself, his thoughts wandering to the Gaffer who had insisted on staying home. After Rosie has kissed his cheek in farewell, Lily Cotton follows him into the moonlit expanse of their yard, and holds him at arms-length, before smoothing his hair. 

“You’re such a fine young man, Sam, your mother would be so very proud,”

It’s meant to assuage the prickling fears and doubts, he knows this, but it makes him feel nervous. He would never know, no matter what she said, and so it would be senseless to dwell on it. 

He instead tries to focus on the soft clucking coming from the chicken coop as he passes, and on the way way the frosty grass crunches beneath his feet. It’s a fine night out, with a waxing moon that bathes the lonely peaks of the fells in silver. A few solitary flakes of snow drift down lazily, feeling for the vulnerable gap between his coat and scarf while the wind nips his fingers numb. Above, he watches the broad expanse of stars, his eyes trailing the shape of the Butcher’s Cleaver and wishing that he knew the names. 

Return journeys often pass quicker than the going, and soon enough he spots the familiar angles of Bag-End, and then finally that of the gardener's cottage. When he finally manages to pry open the door, bringing with him a gust of wind and dried leaves, it is to be greeted by a darkened room and dying fire. The bare coap peg, and the gap amongst the shoes tell him that the Gaffer has gone out, more than like up to town to the pub. So be it.

He tries to sit down, tosses another log into the fire and pokes it about with a set of iron prongs, but something about the silence and emptiness is grating. The dark shadows of the bedrooms make him nervous, and it is hard to be at ease with the stillness broken only by the sound of crackling wood. What if the Gaffer decided to kip up with Halfred or May? 

He makes a rash decision, grabs his jacket and twists the scarf about his neck once more before disappearing into the night with far-flung thoughts of making his way to the greenhouse. Better to be there, in a place unpeopled with memories, than alone in any ghost-ridden house. Keep busy, he tells himself. 

He cuts across the chill lawn and has just made a final dash when a call breaks the stillness of the night.

“Sam!” 

He turns wildly, and cannot fathom out its source, until it is repeated and he makes out the first-story window that has been flung open, and Frodo framed in the lamplight. 

“You can’t be thinking of working, it’s going on midnight!” he laughs, the sound echoing across the grounds.

A treacherous lump has risen in his throat, so that Sam is forced to stand without reply, fearing that something of it would pour over into his words. 

When the silence has stretched out and has been carried off amongst the swirl of dead leaves and rustling branches, Frodo calls out to him again.

“Sam, are you all right? I’m going to come down and let you in, just give me a moment,” and he is gone before Sam can object. The window having been left ajar in his wake.

The moments tick by and the back door is opened to expose a sliver of light which spills out into the night. Sam meets it, finding that he would much rather be here, than alone in the dark.

Frodo bundles him in, helping him to pull his arms free from his coat and pulling the scarf from his neck. 

“You’re freezing-- is something wrong at home?”

“No,” he shakes his head to emphasize the point, feeling shy at being fretted over. “The gaffer’s not home, and I didn’t want to sit about, so I decided to go out, it was foolish really, I’m sorry to have troubled you--”

Frodo looks at him steadily, his face washed of colour in the muddy light, before he seems to come to some conclusion.

“I’m not sleeping, you could come and sit with me until you’ve warmed up a bit, if you like? But if you truly want to go out to the greenhouse, you can, I won’t stop you and I shan’t breathe a word of it to Uncle Bilbo, I swear it,” 

“Are you sure I wouldn’t be bothering you, Mr. Frodo?” he shifts uncertainly.

“Not at all, come, I’ll put on some tea if you like. Just mind that you’re quiet in the hall-- Uncle’s already gone to bed and his is the room nearest the stairs.”

They creep silently, Frodo following behind, until they reach the stairs, through to the upper bedrooms with which Sam is unfamiliar. Some of the doors are ajar, and Frodo peers around them warily before they reach his own tucked in a back corner. Frodo stops him in the doorway, arm outstretched. 

“Just wait a moment,” he says, voice tight and sounding a bit queer. Sam tries to peer at his shadowed face, but cannot make anything out.

He watches as Frodo does a round of the room, he peers under the bed and into the wardrobe, beating back jackets before continuing, pausing, and then sharply jerking back the heavy scarlet curtains at the first window, then the second, and finally the third. He pulls the latch closed on the last with a snap. He pats down the untouched bedspread, and when he turns back to Sam it is with a wry smile and hands spread in appeasement.

“Is everything okay, sir?”

“Oh yes, you just can’t be too safe-- let me get the tea-- please, sit!” he rushes from the room, tugging the door behind him.

He cannot help but think of what Jolly had said; _funny in the head_. He hated the way people in town talked, and if it were true-- so what? He had always spoken to him as an equal, had never teased him or made fun of him or anyone else. It was cruel and made something uncomfortable crawl beneath his skin.

He distracts himself with the stacks of book on the small wooden side table, picking one up to examine it, seeing Λυσιστράτη, places it back down and tries another. Τρῳάδες; he places that one back on the table too, aligning the edges so that they stand in a neat pile. He hesitates, and then picks it up again and laying it open, staring at the unfamiliar shapes and tightly wound paragraphs.

Frodo returns, nudging the door open with a shoulder and balancing a mug in either hand. He lays them on the table gently, and then takes the book from Sam to glance at the title.

“Troades-- Trojan Women.”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“It’s a play, Euripedes. It’s about the sacking of Troy.”

“It makes me dizzy looking at the letters.”

“It’s not as difficult to understand as some of the philosophy, but here-- look,” Frodo points out words that Sam can’t catch, and tells him that there isn’t any particular word order that they abide by, just different ways of emphasis.

“Seems a bit o' a muddle to me.”

“It is,” the corner of Frodo’s mouth rises, and he reaches back to place the book unevenly back atop the stack. 

Sam sips his tea, and catches Frodo’s eye over the rim of the mug, and then repeats the action. He could tell him, it would be better than sitting in silence, and what would be the harm?

“My mother died four years ago today; I’ve been a little out of sorts, and well…” he trails off.

Frodo regards him thoughtfully for a moment, and then lowers the mug to the table. 

“I know, Uncle told me but I didn’t want to force you to talk about it by mentioning it out of turn,” his fingers dance over the arm of the chair.

“Thank you, sir,”

“If you do want to talk about it, you’re welcome to, I don’t mind. I know something of it,” he says cautiously. And he must have had it worse, Sam realises, and it is a fact which he had not dwelt on before. Two parents and still a child. 

“I’m sorry, sir, if I’ve made you sad, and really, it’s foolish.” he scrubs a hand through his hair. 

“You know, Sam, and this will sound rotten, but I was so angry at them when they died. Why go boating at night when they knew they had me? Why would they leave me like that? But I didn’t know them, not really. I thought about them a lot when I was in France-- what would they have thought of it all, of me, of what I was doing? If I thought about it too much, it would make me cry in frustration. But it’s a little senseless, thinking of stuff like that, and I wouldn’t have been the same if Bilbo hadn’t taken me. I was a bit of a delinquent as a child,”

Sam laughs despite himself, and Frodo smiles in return.

“It’s true,” he insists. “I lived with Merry-- you know that he and I are first cousins once removed on my mother’s side-- and there was this farmer that lived nearby. I used to go and steal crops from his field until one day he set his dogs on me. I still feel nervous whenever I go and visit and have to walk by there. Uncle Bilbo set me straight, and he gave me books and a home. Sometimes I think I love him more than I could ever love my own parents; I mean, it’s different when you’re a child, isn’t it? They’re just these sort of figures, not people with their own problems and dreams and fears. It makes me uncomfortable, hearing stories about them, because those weren’t the people I know. I know Uncle in a way that I never shall know them, but I do miss them sometimes a frightful amount. Maybe I miss the idea of them. I don’t know, but you see, there’s nothing you could say that could make me think you were in any way foolish.” 

He now sits before him in a new light, something tenuous and fragile linking them. The fire crackles in it’s grate, and Sam suddenly realises that he feels at ease. There is no expectation, and no fear. 

“The Cottons were kind enough to invite me fer dinner, and I couldn’t help but feel jealous that they still had their family whole. It’s an ugly feeling,” he wants to tell him about the Gaffer who stopped shaving his beard when his wife had died. Of the fact that he himself is beyond afraid at the idea of her receding further and further into the past. He would never be able to turn to her again, either for advice or for childish affection. It made him feel small and frightened, and though he knew that the feeling would pass as surely as did the days, and that life would plod forward, he cannot help the tears which spill over.

There is a hand at his knee, but nothing is said until he finishes mopping at his eyes. The hand is not withdrawn immediately, Frodo peering at him and giving a tight lipped smile. 

“Don’t feel foolish, okay?” he squeezes once, and when Sam nods in agreement, he lets go. 

He can’t properly recall the rest of the conversation. Only knows that it drifts by lazily and that he feels a great deal better by the end of it. He laughs, a bit in spite of himself, and he finds himself telling Frodo of his mother putting coal in the Gaffer’s Christmas stocking.

Later they descend silently down the stairs once more, and out to the back door.

“Do you want a torch? It’s quite dark out there.” Frodo peers out through a window as Sam stretches his arm through his coat-sleeve. 

“No, not a very long walk, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

He slips his feet back into his shoes, and then makes a move for the door; the knob handle is icy against the palm of his hand. Outside woolly clouds have obscured the moon, and the only sound is the distant hooting of some sole owl.

He turns to say goodbye, and finds Frodo has followed him out into the night, his hair, no longer so short, tusselled by the wind. He hesitates, and then reaches out and draws Sam to him in an embrace. It happens so quickly that Sam can only register the clean soap smell of his hair, and the feel of Frodo’s chin hooked over his shoulder. Then Frodo withdraws, and Sam descends the steps.

“Goodnight, Sam,”

“Goodnight, Mr. Frodo,” 

At home the Gaffer’s coat hangs from its peg, and the shoes returned to their slot. Sam hangs his own coat, kicks off his shoes, and strips from day-clothes to sleep. In bed, his eyes trail from the shadows on his ceiling, to the window, and beyond to the house where the windows of a single room are still lit. Something tightens in his chest, warm and indistinct.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tolman Cotton and Marigold Gamgee are noted to have married in the books (as did Rosie and Sam, of course-- but this ship is not present as such in this work).
> 
> Regarding Frodo and the dogs, fans of the films will of course remember Merry and Pippin stealing cabbages and running through a certain farmer's fields before bumping into Frodo and Sam (and thereby joining the quest). In the book, it was actually Frodo who had stolen mushrooms from Farmer Maggot's fields. He, Sam, and Pippin are forced to stop by at his house on the way to Crickhollow, much to Frodo's discomfort. Merry, in contrast to the films, is actually a good friend for Farmer Maggot in the books. 
> 
> On genealogy: Merry is not only Frodo's first cousin once removed, but also his third cousin once removed on his father's side (as is Pippin!). 
> 
> Ted Sandyman was the miller of Hobbiton in the books, who says something unkind things about Frodo to Sam in Fellowship of the Ring. He later goes on to work with Lotho Sackville-Baggins and Saruman when they take over the Shire (and out of it he gains a new mill). [Film fans, this is a chapter of the book that was omitted entirely from the films entitled 'The Scouring of the Shire', if you were confused and wanted to read up on it]. 
> 
> Regarding the Greek, Ancient Greek had no word order, but instead had 'cases' of words which each had a different word ending. So 'Όμηρος' is Homer in the nominative case (and thus the subject of the sentence) while 'Όμηρον' is the accusative case (or direct object). It can be a little difficult to grasp, and Sam, who only knows English, is understandably confused. Frodo is reading The Trojan Women and Lysistrata, both which deal with war. 
> 
> If anyone is seriously off put and confused by Frodo's 'odd' behavior and wants a clarification before the upcoming chapters, just drop me a line!
> 
> Some translations to ease the reading:
> 
> 'clout' - to punch  
> 'bairn' - child


	5. Chapter 5

For the following weeks, he cannot help but think a great deal on that evening. Later, once he has the benefit of some distant perspective, he does feel a _little_ silly, crying in the house of one of his employers-- but its a fleeting thing, and instead he dwells on the moments of hushed conversation and remembers the comforting hand at his knee. 

It’s an odd feeling, and wholly senseless, of course, that has him mull over the scene again and again during his free hours. But he thinks of Frodo and feels that those quiet nights spent in conversation were something remarkable; something so wholly unconnected with his life hitherto, this familiarity that was his and not his brothers or the town’s. And he knows, rationally he does, that Frodo was kind-hearted and would have comforted anyone, but he can’t help but feel this instance was perhaps singular, perhaps special.

At the end of November, it snows. Fat drooping flakes which melt the instant they touch the ground, and which leave everything damp and sopping. It isn’t until the weekend that it finally sticks, heaping in the eaves and creating steep banks against the fence in the front garden. He watches it, and remembers his mother lifting him to the window to peer into the snow-flecked night. It seemed, and was, an age past. The hurt fades, but the sense of it lingers. 

It looks particularly jolly from indoors, but the Gaffer complains constantly of aching joints. The hours pass in rushes to stir the fire, a futile battle against the encroaching cold and damp. At night Sam wraps cabbage poultices around his father’s swollen ankles and knees, realising, as if for the first time, just how much he had aged. He frets, but there’s nothing to do but heat bedpans and ensure that he’d enough blankets.

On Saturday when he’s finally forced to trek outside with an empty crate to fetch enough for their Sunday roast-- more potatoes than roast, it might be noted-- the snow becomes markedly less appealing. The cracked sole of his boot allows a wash of cold water in, and the sun is so bright in the snow that it makes his head swim. He walks with his eyes squinted against the glare, and briefly thinks how fine it would be to have a sledge and dogs. He had seen that in a book. 

Cutting across an unblemished field of snow, his feet begin to feel leaden, and his steps grow uncoordinated. Once the gaffer had told him that as a bairn they hadn’t the money for mittens and had to do without. Their hands would be beaten so raw by the cold and wind that they’d swell. Sam, at least-- though he had often forgotten them, had always had mittens. 

When he reaches the edge of the field, he's climbs over a crumbling stone wall, and then thoroughly soaks his pant-legs as he wades through a ditch, and then is forced to mind his footing on the icy road. 

It’s far better in town, where the streets are well-trod and slushy rather than icy. His shoes do squelch a bit as he paces the floors of the grocers, passing over the ration booklet in exchange for a loaf of bread. Last winter the rationing had been awful, although he and the gaffer hadn’t been as affected by those living up in town. In these minute ways, the war lingered on, though the the bombs had stopped. And how strange, he thinks, that he can’t remember any life before it, but that thought is cut short as he stops to bid a _thank you, and a good-day, sir_ to the grocer, Mr. Smallburrow.

“And to you, Mr. Gamgee!”

The crate is cumbersome to manage, and Sam reluctantly thinks of the bicycle propped up in the tool shed back home. It’s a thoroughly foolish idea, the roads being more than enough trouble on one’s own two feet, but the bike was so much quicker.

He does manage it, with little degree of ease, each coarse breath coming out in a rush of steam before him. The streets are a bustling mass of people in woolen coats and children being scolded for kicking up snow. He half-hesitates in front of the seamstresses’ shop-- it couldn’t hurt could it?-- before he ducks into the shop. Marigold is just visible, pink-faced and cheerful looking, over the sea of bobbing heads. 

Lord, what am I doing he thinks, and has decided to slip as unobtrusively as possible back out onto the street, when there is a part in the crowd and she spots him.

“Sam!” 

He greets her with a kiss on the cheek and a sort of gnawing shame.

“Oh, ye’re gay cold,” she cringes away from his touch. “What’s brought you here?”

“Oh, you know, just stopping fer a bit o' a natter,” he smiles, hoping she won’t notice how nervous he’s become. 

He regrets coming here, he feels deceptive and his scarf itches uncomfortably at his neck, as if sensing his guilt. It wasn’t his business, not really, though the hurt stung all the same. Throwing it back or attempting to weasel it out would only cause unneeded hurt, to be sure. 

If she detects any inner turmoil, she doesn’t give notice. Instead she smiles a little crookedly and grips him affectionately by the arm. It’s just as it always was, except not, and he can’t help but be seized by a little inspiration, though not of the weaseling variety, he assures himself.

“Are you going to the dance tonight?” 

She mulls over the question, tucking a strand of brown hair back into a hairpin. 

“I’m not rightly sure, Sam. Are you?”

“Oh, I haven’t decided yet,”

“Well perhaps I’ll see you then?”

The opaque answers seems to spur him on, now, despite his own half-hearted non-answer, he feels that there’s nothing to it but to turn up. It’s not that he hates the dances, but he’s not overmuch one for the dancing itself, and well, that’s it, isn’t it?  
He bids her farewell, extracts a maybe-promise for that evening, and trudges out, crate in arms. 

When he reaches home, it’s with thoroughly soaked trousers-- he’d been forced into the ditch again by a passing motor-car-- and the sense of mild regret. He longingly looks up to Bag End, which , that morning, had held the promise of a mild evening well spent. Now he’s forced to stumble about a little clumsily on legs that are still half-numb, sorting things into pantry-goods and goods to be kept in the house proper.

“Aren’t you a bit old t'be out making snow-angels, Sam?” the Gaffer eyes his drenched trousers with thinly veiled amusement.

“Aye, divn't you laugh now.”

But he does so anyway, and Sam can’t help but join him. Later, he lays out his trousers to dry and instead bustles to and fro in the drawstring trousers he uses for sleep. They let in a chill, but are blessedly undampened. He prays that Bilbo, or worse yet, Frodo won’t chance to glance out one of the windows as he makes a rush for the pantry door, arms laden with foodstuff.

He tries to make himself smart after dinner, washes his face, half-heartedly combs his hair which refuses to lie flat, and does up the loathed top-button of his shirt. It’s only when he’s down the road that he realises the the snow is just as like to soak into his good trousers as it did to his work trousers earlier in the day.

It only follows that when he finally arrives in town that he’s a tiny bit surly, and his teeth have begun to chatter. The fact that the town hall is pleasantly warmed cheers him up a great deal, and he spends his time listening to the tinny phonograph in the corner playing _This Is My Lovely Day_. 

“They played this at the Princess’ wedding they did,” one of the Brockhouse girls leans over the back of the empty chair to his left, all freckles and red hair. “I read it in the paper-- did you see her frock?” She stares accusingly. 

Sam shakes his head no, feeling his ears grow hot.

“How did you not see her frock, now? T’was in all the papers, it was.” 

She prances off in a huff, and Sam is left feeling a little awkward until the band proper comes in and the music grows too loud for small talk. He watches Sancho Proudfoot on the fiddle, before he feels compelled to leap in for a dance, and it’s not so bad, even though Poppy Hayward’s hands are extremely sweaty. 

One song turns into two, and then three, and he’s feeling rather warm and excuses himself during the lull between three and four to step outside and wipe at his own sweaty forehead. He can still hear the distant sound of the tramp of feet, and the wheezing of the accordion when he finds that Poppy has followed himself outside and down the front steps.

“Alright, Sam?” she leans against the bricks the iron railing on her bare arm.

“O' course, just a bit warm t’is all,”

“Aye, t'is a bit warm, eh?”

He’s not sure if he’s meant to reply to this, but is saved the trouble when she hurls herself off the bottom step and into his arms, colliding in what is both a very wet and very awkward kiss. He doesn’t mind, but he doesn’t not mind either. She tastes like she’s had a few too many pints of ale, so he tries to peel her away gently. 

“Did you not fancy that?” 

“Er, no, not really,” he says and prays that there is no incriminating lipstick on his own face.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” and she does look sorry, so that he himself begins to feel sorry, and more than a little troubled.

“Are your friends inside, Poppy?” 

“Oh just Myrtle and Laila and Rose and--” her list falls off, and she tries to divine the missing friend by counting them out on her fingers.

“You okay with going back inside and finding them?”

She nods, so he takes her arm and guides her as steadily as he can up the steps which are icy and worry him. Inside, it’s a few minutes of searching, but he finally locates the group of girls huddled around Robin Smallburrow, the grocer’s son, who is swearing he saw a ghostly tree floating over the Derwentwater not a fortnight past. When he thinks the girls aren’t looking, he gives Sam a pointed wink. The narrowed look on Laila’s face suggests that Robin is not as covert as he thought himself to be.

“I think Poppy’s had a bit much to drink,” he whispers to Rose. “So you may want to keep an eye on her and make sure that she’s alright.” 

“Ta, Sam,”

He considers joining the dance once more, but his trousers itch and he can’t stop himself from yawning. For good measure, he makes a round of the room once more, edging his way past the flying skirts of dancers and empty chairs. Neither Marigold, nor Tom, are anywhere in sight, and the night has grown so late that it was extremely unlikely that they would now come. He can’t pinpoint what he feels, perhaps disappointment, but mostly he thinks with reluctance of the night that might have been better spent at Bag End.

On the dark walk home he tries to make sense of it. Why had it bothered him so much that he was driven to such ridiculous lengths to confirm that Marigold was, in fact, seeing Tom Cotton. Perhaps it had been because she represented the last vestige of childhood, his baby sister who has always been one step behind him. Was it now the other way around? Or perhaps it was the fact that he had been omitted from her confidence, left to find out second-hand when he feels he ought to have been told first.

It is only when the familiar road that leads to Bag End and the gardener’s cottage comes to view that he realises that perhaps this wasn’t about him at all. Marigold was her own person, rationally he knew that, and perhaps now he was coming to understand it. There were a million reasons why, and the most glaringly obvious was that perhaps she felt too awkward to bring it up, the baby in the family who was no longer a child. It didn’t matter, he knew, not really. It wasn’t as if she would bar him from the wedding, if there was one. The most peaceable and kind option would be to leave it, let her tell him in her own time. She was still his baby sister, whether or no, this didn’t change anything. 

He gets changed in the dark of the cottage, not wishing to wake the gaffer. He thinks worriedly of his rheumatism, and prays that he’d thought to apply something to his joints himself, but they would deal with it either way, they always did. It is only when he is tucked in bed that he notices that there is still a single room light up at the house. Frodo was awake, and the thought makes his stomach jump a little. He falls asleep watching it, waiting for it to flick off, but the moment never comes.

In the morning he dresses as quickly as possible, his pair of trousers from day-previous having thankfully dried. He goes through the motions in a bit of a blur, putting the tea to boil and slicing bread and putting it into the toasting prongs to sit among the coals of the fire. When all has been laid out, he fetches his father. Breakfast is eaten in silence, though Sam can’t help but glance constantly to the clock. 

Finally, at a minute to eleven, he feels he can’t wait any longer and after shoving his feet into shoes and his arms into his coat, he barrels up through the snow to the house. He knocks at the back door in what has become a Sunday ritual, but is surprised to find that there is no answer. After knocking once more, he decides to try the knob. It’s unlocked, and the door gives with a gust of cold air. It wouldn’t hurt, would it, just to peek? If nobody was about he would simply let himself back out with none the harm done. And neither Bilbo nor Frodo had mentioned him being unwelcome this particular day. 

So he reasons as he tiptoes in his socks down the hall to the drawing room, it is only when he is two-steps into the room that he realises with a jolt that it’s occupied, and by someone who is very evidently neither Frodo, nor Mr. Bilbo. The man who sits by the window is grizzled with dark greying hair that is far too long, nearly reaching his shoulders, and a full beard.

Sam forgets himself, and stares, and is met by a blank stare from the man. 

Feeling he ought to make amends for being impertinent, he blusters out a chain of niceties.

“Terribly terribly sorry to disturb you, Sir, would you like a cup o' tea?” he realises belatedly, after the man’s eyebrows draw together and his frown deepens, that Sam is not, in fact, in his own house where he would even be at a liberty to offer tea.

“I don’t drink tea,” the man intones slowly in deep slightly inflected English.

He has just decided that the best course of action is to subtly tiptoe backward into the hall while trying to make amends when Bilbo arrives with a tray of coffee.

“Ah, Sam! I didn’t hear you come in, but it seems that you’ve already met Thorin.”

Sam swallows, and can only nod dumbly in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so ridiculously sorry for the huge break between chapters. Term papers and exams attacked with a furious vengeance, and the story got laid by the wayside for a short while. I'm working on building up a backlog of chapters, so hopefully this shan't happen again! 
> 
> The brief mention of the Gaffer and mittens is one that was related to me by my grandparents concerning their own childhoods. They grew up in rural Eastern Europe in the 1940s and 1950s. The area they are from was not very developed in this time: my grandmother did not see an electric bulb until she was six. It's therefore not particularly similar to Britain of the same period, but the story stuck with me and I thought it might be appropriate for the Gaffer who grew up around the turn of the century. 
> 
> Sam's mention of the rationing of the winter previous is a reference to the problems which arose out of the winter of 1946-47. The weather caused severe problems with fuel and transportation, and rations (which now included potatoes) were cut to levels lower than it had been during the War itself. Rationing would not end entirely in the UK until 1954.
> 
> Re: the song choice and the Princess' dress-- Queen Elizabeth, then Princess Elizabeth, got married to Philip Mountbatten, now Prince Philip, on the 20th of November, 1947. The Brockhouse girl who mentions it being played at their wedding is mistaken, although it was the most requested song on BBC radio at the time. If you're interested, you may listen to it [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58e1rxKAUzI)
> 
> Some (brief) translations to ease the reading:
> 
> 'gay' - very


End file.
